Atari's Sales Were Way Down in 2010

vansau

Mortician of Love
May 25, 2010
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Atari's Sales Were Way Down in 2010



Sales were less-than-half of what they were in 2009, but online sales increased almost 500 percent.

Last year wasn't exactly the best Atari's ever seen. The publisher has just unveiled its sales numbers for the final nine months of 2010, and the figures are a pretty staggering decline from past years.

According to Atari, its total sales for 2010 amounted to €41 million, down 55.7 % from the €92.5 million earned during the same timeframe in 2009. The biggest drop was in retail sales, which was down €66.8 million to €22.6 million. However, the publisher did manage to see some pretty major improvement with its online revenue, which was up 493 % from €3.1 million to €18.4 million.

According to CEO Jim Wilson, though, it sounds like Atari isn't too upset with these numbers:

"Our nine-month revenues are in line with our outlook and show a continued shift toward fewer but more profitable retail releases and the growing online games market ... We launched Champions Online in the free-to-play model in January 2011, and the initial results have been promising. We have also launched Test Drive Unlimited 2 in line with our forecasts and to positive ratings in US and Europe."

Atari's increased online sales aren't too surprising, seeing as how the company's got two major MMOs in its stable now. Champions Online just went free-to-play, too, which Atari is hoping will generate even more revenue.

Source: <a href=http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2011-02-16-atari-sales-down-as-company-shifts-to-online>GamesIndustry.biz

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Spy Killer

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Feb 4, 2010
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I feel just aweful for the old guy. Atari has done so so much for the gamng industry; you know, starting it and all.
 

WorldCritic

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This really doesn't surprise me. I actually can't remember any titles with Atari's name on them from the past two years.
 

vansau

Mortician of Love
May 25, 2010
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Spy Killer said:
I feel just aweful for the old guy. Atari has done so so much for the gamng industry; you know, starting it and all.
Atari isn't the original Atari. It was acquired by Infogrames a number of years ago, which adopted the publisher's name and logo.
 

Exort

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Oct 11, 2010
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vansau said:
Spy Killer said:
I feel just aweful for the old guy. Atari has done so so much for the gamng industry; you know, starting it and all.
Atari isn't the original Atari. It was acquired by Infogrames a number of years ago, which adopted the publisher's name and logo.
Yeah, just like Activision is not the old Activision anymore.
 

Therumancer

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Nov 28, 2007
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Truthfully I think Atari's sins are catching up with it. To be entirely honest Atari is one of the companies that was leading the charge to work with censors. A lot of products by them like "Neverwinter Nights 2", "Temple Of Elemental Evil", "Knights Of The Old Republic 2" and others have all been plagued by this spectre. A constant rumor following them around being that they have forced developers to go with earlier builds of games when they decided in the 11th hour that they didn't want content in the game they had earlier approved. A lot of people have commented on the "choppy" nature of things like "Neverwinter Nights 2" where according to a lot of the buzz the problem was the removal of romance/sexual-type-content with characters like Neesha (Tiefling Rogue). "Temple Of Elemental Evil" famously includes an entire festhall quest hub that was still in the game code, along with a lot of the quest material, but locked out from the game itself (and eventually unlocked by groups like "The Circle Of Eight" who spent a lot of time trying to restore that game). "Knights Of The Old Republic 2" was another example where resources for things like the HK factory, and an entire droid planet can be found in the game, but were apparently disabled, with groups like "Team Gizka" trying to restore them, albiet without the success of Circle Of Eight, KoToR2 also had what appeared to be heavy editing to character relationships as well with entire sections of progression for some characters apparently missing. These are only the ones I'm personally aware of being an RPG fan.

At any rate, developers like Obsidian and the now-defunct Troika wound up getting a lot of flak over this kind of thing, but I think over time a lot of people have come to realize that Atari has as much to do with it as them. Obsidian might be blamed for the bugs for example, but Atari can be blamed for the missing content when you notice the pattern. Even the bugs can be debatable because according to what I keep hearing they basically take finished games, decide they don't like something that can't be easily remove, and pretty much take a beta version of the software with some hasty edits and release that. Their priorities backfiring after a while.

Atari isn't the same company that they used to be (as was pointed out), and to me it's one of the worst publishers out there. I pretty much refuse to buy games with the "Atari" logo on them anymore until I know more about it after release. I simply do not trust them, and as odd as it sounds I think they ruin the work of their developers.
 

nagi

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Mar 20, 2009
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Don't have high hopes for TDU2, though. TDU 1 is still better on PC in terms of control e.g. Graphically, yes, there is the changing daytime, but other than that, nothing really. I actually went back to TDU 1, and that is telling.
 

VGC USpartan VS

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I don't even nknow what games Atari even realeses... heck, I forgot they still existed as a big-brand company!
 

Zenode

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When i read the title i thought it said "Atari Sales Were Way Down in 2010"

and i thought "well derrr"

OT: Doesnt this just show how the market is starting to lean towards digital sales.
 

icyneesan

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Feb 28, 2010
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I didn't read the article, and I don't think I have to as its all very self explanatory. With todays modern technology how can Atari expect to sell any Atari Jaguars. I mean really that technology is 18 years old!

Come on Atari get off your asses and release a new console already.
 

Killerbunny001

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Oct 23, 2008
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VGC USpartan VS said:
I don't even nknow what games Atari even realeses... heck, I forgot they still existed as a big-brand company!
Actually they have been classified as a medium size publisher given the number of titles they released last year.

VGC USpartan VS said:
... Atari isn't the same company that they used to be (as was pointed out), and to me it's one of the worst publishers out there.
I totally agree, but I think it`s the lack of money driving them in this direction. The lack of money and a very poor system of quantifying quality. Many publishers have the second problem also but when you have the resources to supplement the budget and push the release a bit it doesn`t become so obvious.
 

Mr. Omega

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Jul 1, 2010
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What has Atari actually made in 2010? I know there might be some, but I can't for the life of me think of any.
 

Trogdor1138

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May 28, 2010
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Just like Activision, this is a far different company than how they were back in the Golden days, when they did amazing things. So I don't see this as a surprise and I don't know anything they've done recently.